A new Blue Brain /EPFL MOOC on Genetics and Development
© 2023 EPFL
EPFL has developed an online and open educational course for the future generation of Neuroscientists. This course provides the fundamental knowledge in neuroscience required to understand how the brain is organised and how function at multiple scales is integrated to give rise to cognition and behaviour.
Modern neuroscience is multidisciplinary and collaborative. We need to integrate knowledge of experimental and theoretical approaches to neuroscience, and look at the brain and brain function from different perspectives: for example, genes can partially explain differences in reading ability, but there is no single gene that makes someone a good or a poor reader. And genes can be turned on and off by external factors such as someone’s diet or a virus infection. So to understand something as complex as reading ability, we need to stitch together knowledge about the role of genes, proteins, cells, and large networks of cells.
In this course on Genetics and Brain Development, we will focus on the principles of neurogenetics and brain development and we will introduce you to the fields of genomics, transcriptomics, epigenomics and their applications.
Funding for this MOOC was from the Patrick and Lina Drahi Foundation and the Blue Brain Project.